Yes January, severe pain! I even had to miss some work last week because of it. Soaking in hot baths got me through the worst of my recent flare-up and massage does help as well, but only for a couple of days, which isn't enough. :( Thanks for your reply!

Have you tried acupuncture?? Sometimes you have to try a couple, until you find someone who knows what they are doing. Not sure if it will work on the pain you have, but it really did help me - depending on the person who was doing it too.

January wrote: PS - not sure where you live, but remember it's winter, and none of us seem to do very well when the weather is cold and the fronts are blowing through! Feel better...

That is SO VERY TRUE! I live in Chicago where it is bitter cold and snowy and just a couple of weeks ago, it was 55 degrees and sunny outside. Not very fibro-friendly for sure :) Also the humidity in the summer kills me. My husband and I were trying to figure out a fibro-friendly location. He wants to move to Hawaii. I thought about it until I did a bit of research and found out that there are centipedes out there that grow to 5 to6 inches and are poisonous and very aggressive. Um, I'll stick with Chicago's iffy climate thank you very much ;)

liveinpain - If you are able, you might want to think about moving. I've heard so many people say their pain is better in a warm AND dry climate (Hawaii is very humid). Like the desert areas in the southwest US…?

I think acupuncture really works well. It's a whole different system, you can read up on it. And just like Western MDs, some are good and some aren't. I've been to several people, they all worked differently. Some helped the pain more, and some helped the fatigue more. One Chinese woman could take away my back pain (but only for up to a week) with one treatment, using only two really long needles. Later I was extremely ill, and I went to a Korean doctor. He used many short needles, and I went for several years. He helped me get my strength back. Then Western medicine got involved and made me really sick again...

There was a long discussion here last winter (which was awful)… and people were really suffering with the cold and the barometric pressure changes. I had wondered about it for a while, but it was interesting to hear that so many other people had pain from the weather. I get migraines when the pressure makes a sudden, big change. Makes sense that the rest of my body would be affected. Makes me think of old folks years ago talking about their rheumatism (which is, I think, what they used to call some types of fibro) and being able to predict the weather by their pain levels.

PS I lived in Hawaii and never was bothered by centipedes. It's like anyplace. We have poisonous spiders here in the US. In general, Hawaii has fewer poisonous critters than most tropical areas. If your husband wants to go… I'd say it's worth a check. There are all different types of climates there too. You can research where it's not so humid. Don't go to Hilo!